Libro Cuarto Título I. De la inscripción en General

The Registry of Property is a public institution whose purpose is the registration, annotation and cancellation of acts and contracts relating to ownership and other rights in rem over immovable property and identifiable movable property, with the exception of movable guarantees constituted in accordance with the Law of Movable Guarantees.

In the Register shall be registered:

1°.The titles evidencing ownership of immovables and of real rights imposed thereon;

2°.Titles transferring ownership of immovables and those in which rights of usufruct, use, habitation, family patrimony, mortgage, servitude and any other real rights over immovables are constituted, recognized, modified or extinguished; and promise contracts regarding immovables or real rights thereon;

3°.Possession evidenced in a legally issued supplementary title;

4°.Acts and contracts conveying in trust immovable property or real rights thereon;

5°.Marriage settlements, if they affect immovable property or real rights;

6°.Titles recording that an immovable is subjected to the horizontal property regime; and the lease or sublease, when requested by one of the contracting parties; and mandatorily, when it is for more than three years or when rent has been paid in advance for more than one year;

7°.Railroads, tramways, canals, docks or public works of a similar nature, as well as vessels, aircraft, and encumbrances imposed on any of such property;

8°.Titles constituting rights for the exploitation of mines and hydrocarbons and their transfer and encumbrances;

9°.Concessions granted by the Executive for the use of waters;

10°.The ordinary pledge, the agrarian, livestock, industrial or commercial pledge;

11°.Provisional or definitive possession of the property of the absentee;

12°.The judicial declaration of interdiction and any final judgment modifying the civil capacity of persons owning rights subject to registration or the free disposition of property;

Buildings constructed on another's land with the consent of the owner; mills, large processing plants, cotton gins and agricultural or industrial machinery constituting an independent economic unit from the estate in which they are installed; and

14°.Motor vehicles and other movables easily identifiable by manufacturing numbers and models.

There shall likewise be entered in the Registry the instruments or titles referred to in the preceding article, executed or issued in a foreign country, which meet the requirements necessary to constitute proof in court, and the final orders or judgments rendered abroad, when they have been ordered to be enforced by the courts of the Republic, and affect rights in rem.

The registration in the Register may be requested by any person who has an interest in securing the right to be registered. The registrars shall make every registration, annotation or cancellation within the term of eight days, counted from the date of receipt of the document. If the latter gives rise to several of the operations indicated above, the term shall be extended by six more days.

If the document presented is not registrable or lacks the necessary legal requirements, the registrar shall record such fact in a special book to be kept for such purposes and on the document itself, which he shall return to the interested party, stating the time and date of receipt in the Register, as well as the law on which he relies to suspend or deny the registration.

In no tribunal or public office shall deeds or documents subject to registration be admitted that have not been endorsed by the registrar.

The first registration shall be that of the title of ownership or possession and without that requirement no other title or real right relating to the same property may be registered. Said registration may only be modified, expanded or corrected in the following cases:

1°.By virtue of a final judicial decision;

2°.Upon presentation of a certified copy of a public deed:

a)When the grantors of an act or contract that gave rise to the first registration of a movable property, immovable property or real right, all appear requesting the modification, expansion or correction of such registration, because an error or omission was committed in the public deed or in the original document; and

b)When the owner requests that the location or address of the immovable property be recorded. In these cases the data shall be declared under oath in the corresponding public deed and the notary shall transcribe the document issued by the respective municipality, in which are stated the location or address of the property in question and its registration identification;

3°.In the other cases expressly authorized by law.

Every registration shall state:

1.Whether the parcel is rural or urban, its location indicating the municipality and department in which it is located, area, bearings or azimuths; or geographic coordinates duly georeferenced to the national geodetic system: linear measurements and adjoining boundaries; its name and address if it has one. Such data shall be stated in the document submitted for its registration in the respective Property Register and in the plans which may be prepared by civil engineers, architects and agricultural engineers who are active licensed members in the Republic of Guatemala.

Cases of supplementary titling and subdivisions of rural parcels of less than seven thousand square meters, and urban parcels located in those remote towns of the country where it is not possible to locate one of the indicated professionals, are excepted from the obligation to submit plans signed by the indicated professionals, which circumstance the notary must record in the corresponding instrument, with the proviso that if there are three subdivisions or more of the parent parcel, or in the case of urban parcelings, the respective Property Register shall require as a requirement for the registration of each of the new parcels that the plans be signed in accordance with the requirements contained in the preceding paragraph.

2.The nature, extent, conditions and encumbrances of the right being registered and its value if stated;

3.The nature, extent, conditions and encumbrances of rights over the property that is the subject of the registration;

4.The nature of the act or contract, the date and place thereof;

5.The full names of the persons executing the act or contract;

6.The judge, public official or notary who authorizes the title;

7.The date of delivery of the document to the Register with statement of the time, the number assigned to it according to the delivery book, the duplicate number and the volume in which it will be archived; and

8.Handwritten signature and seal of the principal registrar, substitute registrar or auxiliary registrar who authorizes the transaction, as well as the seal of the Register. The handwritten signature may be replaced by an electronic, digitized or printed signature by any electronic means, which shall produce the same legal effects as the handwritten signature, provided that the security standards established and approved by the Register to guarantee its authenticity are complied with.

The requirements referred to in item 1 shall only be necessary in the first registration.

The registration of identifiable movable property shall be made with the requirements and in the form established in Article 1214 of this Code.

Every document shall be presented in duplicate to the register: the copy shall be drawn up on stamped paper of the lowest value and shall be kept with the classification of the case in the office. For documents executed abroad, notarial certification shall be presented in duplicate.

When the Register is able to do so, it shall substitute the duplicates indicated in this article with microfilm copies of the original documents, the most appropriate manner for their classification and preservation being provided.

The notations on titles subject to registration shall consist of a summary or a complete transcription of the corresponding entries, printed by mechanical, electronic, computerized means or by any other reproduction process, shall bear the signature and seal of the registrar who issues it and the seal of the Register. The signature shall appear using any of the forms established by numeral 8 of the preceding article.

When the estate by its location corresponds to two or more departments, it shall be registered in the register of the territory where the dwelling house or the principal offices are located; failing that, in the register of the department where the largest part of the land is located. All else being equal, if there is neither house nor office, the interested party shall register it in any of the departments in which the estate is situated.

In registrations relating to a previously registered property, those circumstances already of record with respect thereto in the register shall be omitted, making only reference to them and citing the number and the book and folio in which they are found; but care shall be taken to express the alterations that it has undergone.

When any act or contract transferring ownership, in which a price has been involved, is to be registered, the price resulting from the title shall be stated, whether it was cash or in installments and the manner in which it must be paid. The same circumstances shall also be stated in the exchange and in the adjudication in payment, if any of the interested parties remains obligated to pay to the other any difference in cash or in kind.

Mortgage and pledge registrations shall state the conditions to which the credits are subject, the amount of the guaranteed obligation and the time limit.

Easements shall be recorded in the registration of the property, both of the dominant estate and of the servient estate; but if they are constituted with a public-use character and in favor of towns, cities or municipalities, they shall be recorded only in the servient estate, when there is no determined dominant estate.

The fulfillment of the suspensive, resolutory or rescissory conditions affecting the registered acts or contracts shall be recorded in the register by a new registration in favor of the corresponding party, upon presentation of the respective public deed or the judicial decision ordering it.

The registrations of the judicial decisions referred to in items 11 and 12 of Article 1126 shall state the type of incapacity and the declared limitations with respect to the free disposition of the property.

These registrations shall cover all the property registered in the name of the person to whom the final judicial decision refers.

If the immovable property belongs in common to several persons, a single registration shall be made until a division is effected among the co-participants or any of them transfers his right to another.

Among two or more registrations of the same date relating to the same property or right, preference shall be determined by the earlier time of delivery of the title at the register.

If a dispatch containing a judicial order or writ for annotation of a claim or attachment and a certified copy of a public deed of acts or contracts affecting the same property or rights are presented to the Register on the same day, regard shall be had to the time of delivery of the documents. If they are presented at the same time, the document that is earlier according to the numbering of the Register's delivery book shall have preference. In such cases, the registrar shall make the registrations and annotations that are appropriate in the manner previously indicated. If the interested party should disagree with what was done, he may proceed in accordance with Article 1164 of this Code.

If, upon making a registration or annotation, there should appear from the title any other real right not previously registered, the registrar shall proceed to make immediately thereafter the separate and special registration corresponding to such right. Such registration, from its date, shall produce effect against a third party.

Registered supplementary titles shall produce the same effects as title of ownership, in accordance with the provisions of Article 637 of this Code.

The registration shall be void when, due to omission of any of the particulars it must contain, or for having been drawn up inaccurately, it has misled a third party and such third party, or any of the contracting parties, appear prejudiced in the register.

Registration does not validate acts or contracts that are void under the laws. Notwithstanding this, acts or contracts executed or granted by a person who appears in the register as entitled to do so, once registered, shall not be invalidated as to a third party, even if the grantor's right is subsequently annulled or terminated by virtue of causes that do not appear in the same register.

Rescissory or resolutory actions shall not prejudice a third party who has registered his right, excepting:

1°.Rescissory or resolutory actions expressly stipulated by the parties, which appear in the register; and

2°.The revocation action for alienation in fraud of creditors, where the third party has been an accomplice in the fraud or has acquired the right by gratuitous title.

In the two cases of subparagraph 2°, the revocation action that has not been filed within one year, counted from the day of the fraudulent alienation, shall not prejudice a third party.

Only what appears registered or annotated in the register shall prejudice a third party. Third party means a person who has not intervened as a party in the act or contract.

Registered or annotated titles shall have effect against a third party and even against singularly privileged creditors, from the date of their delivery to the Register.

The following may obtain annotation of their respective rights:

1°.Whoever sues in judicial proceedings for ownership, creation, modification or extinction of real rights over immovables or other real rights subject to registration, or for the cancellation or modification thereof;

2°.Whoever obtains a judicial attachment order levied upon registered real rights of the debtor;

3°.The legatees and certain creditors of the decedent in real rights of the inheritance;

4°.Whoever sues for the declaration or presumption of death, incapacity by interdiction, possession of the property of the absent person, or for modification of the civil capacity of persons as to free disposition of their property;

5°.Whoever presents a title whose registration cannot be made definitive due to curable defects within the term of thirty (30) days, after which the annotation shall be deemed cancelled de facto; and

6°.Whoever in any other case is entitled to request preventive annotation, in accordance with the provisions of this Code or another law.

The annotations deriving from judicial order, in the cases of subparagraphs 1, 2, 4, and 6 of the preceding article, shall be made by the registrar upon receiving the writ to be issued by the respective tribunal.

In the case of subparagraph 3, it shall be necessary for the right to be established by reliable evidence, but if six months have elapsed since the death of the decedent, the annotation shall be made by the registrar only by judicial order.

In the remaining cases, the request of the interested party before the registrar substantiating his right shall suffice.

Annotations arising from judicial orders shall not be suspended by appeal or opposition by a party.

The party interested in the annotation of an immovable that is not registered in the register has the right to personally carry out all necessary steps to obtain the registration of the immovable in question.

The legatee of genus or quantity may not demand annotation over immovable property or real rights specifically bequeathed to others, and the legatee of determined immovables or of credit or pensions assigned over them may not constitute his annotation except over the same property.

If any of the legatees is an uncertain person, the annotation of his legacy shall be made on its own initiative by the registrar, upon the annotation of other legacies or upon the registration of the inheritance in favor of the heir.

The creditor who obtains an annotation in his favor in the case of paragraph 2 of Article 1149 shall be preferred, with respect to the annotated property, only over those who hold against the same debtor a claim contracted after said annotation.

The preventive annotation does not give preference to the legatees among themselves, nor to the creditor over the others of the same class.

The annotation in favor of the creditor of the inheritance or of the legatee who is not of a specific thing, nor of rents or real rights constituted over a determined immovable, shall expire one year from its date, and consequently shall be cancelled on its own initiative by the registrar, even when it has been judicially decreed.

If upon expiry of the year the legacy or the credit is not yet enforceable, the annotation shall be considered to subsist until two months after the day on which they may be enforced.

If before expiration of the term of the annotation it proves ineffective to secure the credit or legacy, by reason of the encumbrances or special conditions of the annotated property, the creditor of the inheritance or the legatee may request that other property be annotated, if there are any susceptible to such encumbrance.

The legatee of rents or pensions may request, at any time, that the annotation made in his favor be converted into a mortgage registration, if the testator has assigned the portions on specified immovables of the inheritance.

If the legatee has recorded his right, he may request, at any time, the mortgage registration of the immovable property of the inheritance encumbered by the testator, which is in the possession of the heir or legatee obligated to provide the pension.

When a will constituting family patrimony is presented to the Property Register, the registrar shall, on its own initiative, make a provisional annotation on the property affected by the patrimony, which shall be cancelled upon the definitive registration being made.

When the preventive annotation referred to in subsection 5 of Article 1149 of this Code is converted into a definitive registration of a right, it shall take effect from the date of such annotation and in such cases the registrar, upon written request of the person who obtained it, shall cancel registrations of later date.

The annotated immovable property or real rights may be alienated or encumbered, but without prejudice to the right of the person in whose favor the annotation has been made.

The interested party who does not agree with the denial, suspension of the annotation, cancellation or registration of the documents submitted to the Registry may resort by way of incidental proceedings against the registrar before the Judge of First Instance of the civil branch of the departmental district where the Registry has its seat.

The preventive notation loses its effects thirty days after it was made or upon the expiry of the extension that may have been granted and shall be cancelled on its own initiative by the registrar, if during that time limit the document remedying the omission has not been presented. It shall also be cancelled upon written request of the person who obtained it, of the owner of the annotated property or right, or through the presentation of the judicial order so ordering.

In any case, the registrar shall place a marginal note in the corresponding book of every cancellation or extension of a preventive notation that he registers.

Every annotation shall state: the immovable property or real right to which it relates; the judge who decreed it, if applicable; the persons whom it affects, the title of its origin, the amount of the obligations if they can be determined; the date and time of delivery of the document in the Register. The lack of any of these requirements shall render the annotation ineffective.

Registrations shall be cancelled by virtue of the document evidencing the legal extinguishment of the registered rights or obligations.

The cancellation may be made partially or totally. In the former case, the part with respect to which the cancellation is made shall be indicated with clarity.

Total cancellation of the registrations and annotations may be requested:

1°.When the immovable object of the registration or the registered real right is completely extinguished.

2°.When the nullity of the document by virtue of which the registration was made is declared; and

3°.When the nullity of the registration is declared as a consequence of the provisions of Article 1145.

The registrar, upon written request of an interested party, shall cancel:

1º.Mortgage registrations with a registered time limit, when ten years have elapsed after the expiry thereof or of its extension and, upon the lapse of two years, other in rem rights over immovables.

2º.Registrations of rights over identifiable movable property, when three years have elapsed since the expiry of the registered time limit or extension.

3.Annotations of claim and attachment after five years from their date; and

4.The agricultural pledge after two years from the expiry of the time limit fixed in the contract.

In addition to what is provided in paragraph 3 of Article 1170 of this Code, the registrations or annotations judicially ordered in the cases established in paragraphs 1, 2, 4 and 6 of Article 1149 shall be cancelled at any time upon presentation of the writ containing the judicial decision so providing. In the other cases of the cited article, the cancellation may be made upon presentation of a certified copy of a public deed in which the person in whose favor the registration or annotation was made, their successors in interest or lawful representatives, expresses their consent.

The annotation shall be cancelled, not only when the annotated right is extinguished, but also when its conversion into a definitive one is agreed in a public deed or ordered in a judicial order.

When a title transferring ownership or a real right, granted by virtue of an auction sale in judicial execution, is presented to the register, every attachment, annotation or registration subsequent to the registration or annotation of the right that gave rise to the auction sale shall be cancelled on its own initiative. Likewise, the annotation of the claim for nullity or falsity of the title that gave rise to the execution and the auction sale shall be cancelled.

Every cancellation shall contain the following requirements:

1°.The class of document by virtue of which the cancellation is made;

2°.The date of the document and that of delivery to the register;

3°.The designation of the judge who may have issued the document or of the notary before whom it was executed;

4°.The names of the persons interested in the cancellation; and

5°.The registration or annotation that is cancelled.

The registrar, under his responsibility, shall suspend or deny the cancellation in accordance with the provisions for registrations.

A cancellation to the detriment of a third party shall be void:

1°.When it does not clearly make known the cancelled registration;

2°.When in a partial cancellation it does not clearly make known the part of the immovable property that has disappeared, or the part of the obligation that is extinguished and that which subsists; and

3°.When the cancellation does not bear the date of delivery to the register of the instrument in which it was agreed by the parties or ordered by the judge.

When a cancellation is declared null by virtue of grounds that do not appear in the entry, such nullity shall not prejudice a third party.

When a property has fifteen or more ownership or mortgage registrations, the registrar shall cancel them and open a new registration with the data resulting from the registrations, transcribing thereto every registration or annotation that is in force. The registrar may require from the interested parties such other data as he deems necessary.

The release or encumbrance of immovable property or real rights therein may only be proved by the certification of the register in which the status of said property is recorded.

The registrars shall issue the certifications requested of them, relating to the property registered in the Register. Such certifications shall be requested in writing and shall be issued without any citation, the applicant having to pay the fees fixed in the Fee Schedule.

When certification of a cancelled registration is issued, the registrar shall in every case insert thereafter a literal copy of the cancellation entry.

In the same manner, the registrar shall make mention in the certification of any title that has only been presented, but that is related to the certified entry.

When the registrar doubts whether a registration is or is not still subsisting, because he also doubts the validity or effectiveness of the cancellation referring to it, he shall insert verbatim both entries in the certification, stating that he does so because he has doubted whether said cancellation meets the circumstances necessary to produce all its legal effects, and he must also state the reasons for the doubt.

The certifications shall be issued by means of photocopies, photostatic copies, mechanical transcription or by any physical, computer, magnetic or electronic reproduction means and shall bear the signature and seal of the registrar who issues them and the seal of the Register, except as provided in the following paragraph. The signature shall appear by any of the means and with the legal effects established in item 8 of Article 1131.

The certifications may be replaced by photographic copies, legalized by the registrar.

When the certifications issued by the registrar are not in conformity with the entries to which they refer, what results from the latter shall prevail, without prejudice to the action of the party harmed by the former to demand the corresponding compensation from the registrar who committed the fault.